The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1887-05-05
at its own soura The sweat on her brow is

L
the spray dashed up from the river of death.
The clock strikes -four" and the rosy dawn
soon after begins to look through the lattice
upon the pale form that looks like detained
81 ecter of the night Soon in amad house she
VIII mistake her ringlets for curling serpents,
and thrust her white hand through the bars of
the prison, and smite her head, rubbing it
back as though to push the scalp from the
SKULL shrieking: "My braini my brain!" Oh,
stand off from thatl Why will you go sound
ing your way amid the reefs and warning
buoys when there is such a vast ocean in
which you may voyage, all sail set?
There is one other thing l shall say this
morning before l leave you, whether you
want to hear it or not. That is, that l con-
slider the lascivious pictorial literature of the
day as most tremendous for ruin. There is
no one who can like good pictures better than
l do. The quickest and most condensed way
of inpressing the public mind is by picture.
What the painter does by his brush for few
favorites the engraver does by his knife
for the million. What the author accom-
plishes by fifty pages the artist does by
fash. The best part of painting that costs
$4,000 you may buy for ten cents. Fine
paintings belong to the aristocracy of art.
Engravings belong to the democracy of art.
You do well to gather good pictures in your
homes. Spread them before your children
after the tea hour is past and the evening
circle is gathered. Throw them on the in
valids couch. Strew them through the rail
train to cheer the traveller on his journey.
Tack them Gil the wall of the nursery.
Gather them in albums and portfolios. God
speed the good pictures on their way with
ministries of knowledge and mercy!
R1,t hot c3,n oil of tba
this art to purposes of iniquity. These death
warrants of the soul are at every street
corner They smite the vision of the young
man with pollution. Many young man
buying copy has bought his eternal dis
comfiture. There may be enough poison in
one bad picture to poison one soul, and that
soul may poison ten, and ten fifty, and the
fifty hundreds, and the hundreds thousands,
until nothing but the measuring line OF
eternity can tell the height, and depth, and
ghastliness and horror of the great undolng.
The work of death that the wicked author
does in whole book the bad engraver may
do op half side of pictorial. Under the
guise of pure mirth, the young man buys one
of these sheets. He unrolls it before his conf
rades amid roars of laughter, but long after
the paper is gone the result may perhaps be
seen in the blasted imaginations of those who
saw it, The queen of death holds banquet
every night, and these periodicals are the
printed invitation to her guests Alas that
the fair brow of American art should be
blotched with this plague spot, and that
philanthropists, bothering themselves about
smaller evils, should lift up no united and
vehement voice against this great calamity!
Young man, buy not this moral strychnine
Cor your soul! Pick not up this nest of
i e., ~
news stand that keeps themi Have your
room bright with good engravings; but for
these outrageous pictOrials have not one wall,
not one bureau, not one pocket. man is no
better than the picture he loves to look at.
If your eyes are not pure your heart cannot
be. At a news stand one can guess the char
acter of man by the kind of pictorial he
purchases. When the devil fails to get
man to read a bad book he sometimes sue
ceeds in getting him to look at bad picture.
When satan goes fishing he does not care
whether it is long line or short line, If he
only draws his victim in. Beware of lascivi-
Gus pictorials, young man-in the name of Al
mighty God | charge you
If l have this morning successfully laid
down any principles by which you may judge
in regard to books and newspapers, then l
have done something of which [ shall not be
ashamed on the day which shall try every
mans work of what sort it is.
Cherish good books and newspapers. Be
ware of the bad ones. One column
may save your soul; one paragraph may
ruin it, Benjamin Franklin said that the
reading of Cotton Mather's ESSAY on Doing
Good" nodded his entire life. The assassin Of
Lord Russell declared that he was led into
crime by reading one vivid romance. The
tod
England never produced better man, de-
clared in his old days that he had never yet
got over the evil effects of having Tor fifteen
| minutes once read bad book. But | need
not go so far off. | could come near home
end tell you of something that occurred in
my college days l could tell you of a COM
rade who was great hearted, noble and gen
erous. He was studying for an honorable
profession, but he had an infidel book in his
trunk and he said to me one day: "De Witt,
would you like to read it2n | said: Eyes,
would" / took the book and read it for only
few minutes. l was really startled with
| what | saw there, and | handed the book
| back to him and said: "You had better de
stroy that book" No, he kept it. He read
! it, He reread it. After while he gave up
religion as a myth. He gave up God
as a nonentity. He gave up the
Bible as a fable. He gave up the
church of Christ as a useless insti
tuition. He gave up good morals as being
unnecessarily stringent. l have heard of
him but twice in many years. The time
before the last heard of him be was con-
firmed inebriate. The last l heard of him be
was coming out of an insane asylum-in
| body, mind and soul an awful wreck. be-
| liege that one iufdel book killed him for two
| worlds.
Go home to-day and look through your
library, and then, having looked through
! your library, look on the stand where you
| keep your pictorials and newspapers, and
apply the Christian principles l have laid
down this morning. If there is anything III
! your home that cannot stand the test, do not
| give it away, for it might spoil an immortal
! soul; do not sell it, for the money you get
would be the price of blood, but rather kindle
d fire on your kitchen hearth or in your back
yard and then drop the poison in it, and keep
| stirring the blaze until from preface to ap-
| pendix there shall not be a single paragraph
left, and the bonfire i'll Brooklyn shall be as
consuming as that one in the streets Of
| EyN,